Broken Chords
by nawsies
Summary: Levi finds a piano in the barracks and teaches himself to play the songs of his soul. LeviHan angst.


There was rarely music in the Underground District. There were a few bars brought to life with the sound of the old instruments, saxophones, pianos, cellos, violins and guitars. Levi would spend hours wandering through the town seeking out the comforting sounds and sitting on rooftops letting the music wash over him, cleansing him of his trespasses.

When Levi joined the Survey Corps he was surprised to find a piano in the barracks. When Isabel and Farlan were training, he spent his time teaching himself how to play. He supposed perhaps he should have been out there more too, but at the time he saw no point. For so long he thought they would not be there long, that he knew all he needed to survive and there was nothing for him there but the documents for his employer and thus the ticket to a life above ground. He thought he would not be there long, how wrong he was on all counts.

Sometimes he could not spend his days at the piano, Erwin Smith would find him and drag him out to join the others. On such days he performed as the dutiful soldier, all the while seeking for weaknesses in Captain Smith. He spat the name in his mind at the time, how strange to think he had come to admire him so much. At nights he would eat quickly and sneak back to the piano, often with Isabel and Farlan at his sides and played for them. He learned the tune of bawdy bar songs Farlan loved, of dances that Isabel had heard in childhood, he wrote his own songs of summer and bird song, of the wind through trees and sunshine on his skin. He wrote songs that were the feeling of flying between the trees, he wrote tunes of showing up the trained Survey Corps members. When Isabel and Farlan weren't there to make him feel embarrassed, he even wrote a song for the curious mind and open heart of Hange Zoë.

He settled into an easy rhythm in the barracks, until they were finally to be sent out scouting. He played, what he thought would be, one last song on the piano. This one of excitement and new beginnings. The next morning he rode out the gates with Isabel and Farlan on either side ready to walk towards a brighter future. He will never understand how he could have been so arrogant.

When he returned without them, he marched through the halls to the piano. He placed their Survey Corps patches atop the piano and began to play. A note here, a chord there, until something inside him broke open and music poured out of him. His fingers flew over the keys, intricate and quick like his movements with maneuver gear. He wove something ethereal into the air of the barracks, the music more than song but a soul. It was a song of anger, of grief and a pain that he did not know how to come out of, but most importantly it was a song of soldiers who had found their wings.

His fingers rose unsteadily off the keys. The crack running right down the middle of him seemed to have been filled for the time being. He closed the lid, pushed the stool back, walked away from the piano and didn't look back.

* * *

Years later Levi found himself back at the piano. He had vowed that he would only align himself with the best warriors, to mitigate the risk of losing those close to him ever again. Yet his plans had gone catastrophically wrong. All of his elite Special Operations Squad, gone in a heartbeat to protect a boy with as much rage within him as Levi himself, and just as much arrogance.

Eld, Gunther, Oluo…Petra, all of them gone. He rested his elbows on the closed lid and dropped his face into his hands. His shoulders shook but no tears came. There were no tears inside of him to give, he had emptied himself long ago. So he sat back up, reached into his coat and pulled out their patches and placed them alongside Farlan and Isabel's. Despite how rarely he played, no one else dared come near the piano ever since he had staked his claim on it.

His fingers ghosted over the keys, tracing out the melody that he knew like his own soul. Perhaps in essence it was, a broken cry of anguish embodying all that humanity felt.

The song was angrier this time, he played it for the loss of his friends _again_. He played it for the loss of every soldier who died fighting the female titan. He played it for the loss of the honourable soldier Eld Jinn, the likes of which the Survey Corps would never see again. He played it for the emptiness in the world that Oluo's confidence used to fill, the silence that would never again be loud with his laughter and jokes. He played for Gunther, who thought things through nearly as much as Levi himself. Above all, he played for Petra, her courage and her passion, and he played for her father and all the shattered dreams that he had for a daughter lost too soon. The song was for the graves that no parent should have to dig for their child.

* * *

Hange had always played the cello. Her aristocratic father found her plucking on the strings at the age of three, he had left the case open and she always was a curious child. He taught her when she was old enough to hold it up herself, lessons fitting in between maths and biology. She played in any spare moment, methodical and learned she played rhythmically and fluidly. Her father's friends told him she was gifted. Her father told them she worked hard, he never meant it as an insult: he simply believed that discipline and strength were more admirable than inherent gifts.

When her father died, she packed up her cello and joined the Military. Originally she intended to join the Military Police in order to support her mother, but then she learned more of the Survey Corps, of the work and research they did to advance humanity and she felt a tug deep within her and knew that it was her calling. Her mother forgave her, promised she would be fine without the extra money, and remarried weeks later anyway.

Hange had not played for the joy of it since she joined the Survey Corps. She maintained her scales and exercises to keep her fingers strong and mind sharp, although hunting Titans did both of those things for her anyway. In honesty, it was nice to do something mundane once in a while.

But when she heard Levi playing the piano on their return from the Female Titan expedition she knew, it was time. She wandered away from the room with the song echoing in her mind. She took her cello out of the case, propped it between her legs and began to pick out the tune as best she could. It took her hours of fiddling with notes, translating chords into drawn out runs and trills.

Later that night she had it. She always had been quick at picking things apart. She took a deep breath that seemed too loud in the silence. She was all too aware of the fact that Levi was no longer playing, that her fellow soldiers would be waiting to hear how she answered his song. Yet when her bow slid over the first note inhibitions faded away. It was not the same song as Levi's, it was a twin. It was the same anguish, same grief but it was different. She played for her parents, for her father and his booming laugh and crooked glasses. She played it for her mother, who always managed a smile in the hardest of times and danced with her to the music from an old record player. A few notes and fragments of her favourite melodies wove in with song of her heart.

Back at his piano Levi was poised over the keys, listening to the sound of the cello through the walls like music descending from the heavens. He heard his soul echoed back to him, but infinitely more peaceful than his ever seemed to be. Where he was a pizzicato note thrumming short and staccato, she was a sustained arpeggio echoing through the air.

He waited, basking in her melody until he was ready. He started, a few notes here, a chord there, like he learning all over again. It did not take long for him to gain confidence: after all, everything seemed to just fall into place for him where Hange was concerned. His fingers moved over a pattern that had long since become second nature, and yet there were the odd changes: a major where there once was a minor and imperfect cadences leaving the whole thing sounding less like an ending, and more like a beginning. His song echoed and harmonised with Hange's, a conversation between two broken souls.

This time Levi did not play for anyone else though. He played for the lost boy of the underground, a thief who was promised freedom and instead lost everything over and over again. A lost boy, who just might finally be being called to a paradise above.

He could not tell anyone how they finished in perfect synchrony. Himself, he took it as a sign long awaited. When he left the piano room that night he did not go to his own bedroom, instead he climbed the stairs to the room above and knocked twice on a half-opened door.

Hange appeared quickly, hair tossed back in a messy bun as she pushed her glasses up on her nose and kicking the clutter away to pull the door open sharply. Around her, Levi didn't mind mess and disorder quite so much.

"May I come in?" He asked, pretending he did not see the red around the edges of her eyes. She nodded and stepped aside.

The pair found themselves sitting on her bed, talking well into the night about loss and grief and the reason for it all. A number of times they questioned whether there was reason, Hange argued for yes. Levi couldn't decide.

Levi found himself comfortable sitting between Hange's legs, leaning his head back on her chest with her chin resting atop his head. It felt, safe. In all the madness of his life this was the one place he'd found that felt safe. "I'm tired Hange," he admitted.

"I know Levi," she nuzzled his hair softly, "I know."

* * *

For a few months the barracks became accustomed to music filling the empty spaces whenever Levi returned from expeditions. His songs varied again. People were permitted to enter while he played and he even took requests. Sometimes Hange helped him with duets, sometimes they went so far as to sing together. He laughed at Sascha's request for drinking songs thinking of all the worst he and Farlan had sung. He smiled with Eren as he had his friends sing the national anthem, proper salute, posture and everything. He politely helped Mikasa learn to play the few love songs he knew, however Hange was a much more knowledgeable source for her. Most of Levi's songs he'd written himself, he did not feel comfortable sharing the songs written about Hange and himself with anyone.

For a time music was a thing of joy within the barracks. It all changed so fast. Levi returned from an expedition, Hange's patch clutched tightly in his hand and he tore through to the piano. He sat down and breathed deeply, head in his hands trying to regain his composure. When his hands stopped shaking enough he played the first few notes of the song of his soul, a song he hadn't had to play in so long, and found he could not get beyond the beginning. His elbows crashed down on the keys, a black key broke off and went flying to the side and he gripped his hair in his hands as sobs wracked his body.

After that day, he never played again.


End file.
